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Braintree online payments provider now is processing more than $8 million in online credit card payments daily, which is 268% of the same quarter of last year and is on track to process more than $3 billion in 2011. Part of this growth comes from overseas, where Braintree has aggressively been expanding its footprint in Europe, Australia, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Braintree reports that international transactions now make up 15 percent of the company’s processing volume. Braintree is adding new merchants at a pace of 100 per month. The company expects to double its team during the next year to keep up with demand.

A large gathering of global stakeholders in the payment card industry will be attending the fifth annual PCI Security Standards Council (SSC) Community Meeting in North America. Ground Labs security and auditing software solutions for the payment card industry, will be a sponsor of this year’s event in Scottsdale, Arizona and participate in the Vendor Showcase. The PCI SSC Community Meetings provide an opportunity for industry stakeholders to learn from each other’s experience working with the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Participants also have opportunities to raise new ideas for future versions of the Standards and learn about best practices for protecting cardholder data as they interact with solution vendors and other service providers in the industry.

PCI DSS and general security and compliance solutions provider New Net Technologies (NNT) has become a member of the PCI Security Standards Council. To enhance payment data security globally while embracing developing technologies, the council relies on the involvement of those across the payments processing chain, from merchants and service providers to payment device manufacturers and software developers, financial institutions and processors. As a participating organisation it will add its voice to the standards-setting process and receive previews of standards drafts, joining more than 600 organisations working to improve payment security.

Dynamics next-generation payment cards is set to launch its “Chip And Choice Technology” at Finovate Fall 2011 in New York City in order to fix EMV’s crippling software fragmentation problem. The “Chip & Choice” technology offers a secure, embedded chip and an exposed chip, from which a user can select different payment options by pressing different buttons on the card. Dynamics’ secure, embedded chip then writes a different, temporary chip profile into the exposed chip based on the user’s selection. In doing so, a user can select and use different payment applications even with readers that do not support such applications. This level of flexibility, unique to Dynamics payments cards, negates the needs for costly infrastructure updates in order to deliver powerful new functionality to merchants, networks, card issuers and consumers.

EastNets compliance and payment solutions has obtained the SWIFTReady workers remittance conformance label for 2011. en.MoRe is the first application in the workers’ remittances program offering a mobile remittance functionality where it demonstrated a real time remittance between a Telco operator and a receiving bank . A partnership agreement was signed earlier this year with BICS (Belgacom International Carrier Services) to provide mobile money transfer services to millions of migrant workers worldwide. BICS operates an international network, with over 550 direct connections, including more than 250 routes to mobile operators, in more than 170 countries.

ACT (Applied Card Technologies Ltd) contactless tickets and payments solutions was placed at position #49 in the recently announced Sunday Times Tech Track 100 listing of Britain’s fastest growing private technology companies. ACT which joined forces with sQuid in May earlier this year to create Smart Transactions Group, the new European leader in smart transactions, in a deal valued at $87 million (£53.3 million). ACT designs, builds and operates innovative smart IT systems and services for retail, tourism, transport and eMoney providers. ACT public sector solutions, helps to connect citizens to services. ACT is a hands-on technology company.

E-Debit Global Corporation has entered into a signed memorandum of understanding to expand its national ATM and POS independent sales organizations (ISO) network. E-Debit Global Corporation (WSHE) is a financial holding company in Canada at the forefront of debit, credit and online computer banking. Currently, the Company has established a strong presence in the privately owned Canadian banking sector including Automated Banking Machines (ABM), Point of Sale Machines (POS), Online Computer Banking (OCB) and E-Commerce Transaction security and payment.

Digital forensics and incident response specialist, Foregenix, has appointed IT security expert, Nick Barratt to drive the sales of its cardholder data discovery suite, FScout across EMEA. Nick will also be responsible for forming technology and reseller partnerships with companies across Europe to support Foregenix’s direct sales efforts. Nick has been in the IT security industry for more than twelve years. His most recent positions include that of Sales Manager at SafeNet. Here, he developed specialisms in encryption, tokenisation, key management and intelligent data protection. He has strong relationships with a number of experts in the PCI DSS arena and regularly participates in a number of working groups and special interest groups within the security industry. He understands PCI DSS and PA DSS inherently.

American Express foreign exchange and credit card company opened its first foreign exchange bureau at Copenhagen Airport, and another two American Express locations will open in the transit area in Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 respectively within the next few weeks. In addition to buying and selling cash in virtually any currency, the three new American Express bureaux will also offer an online service allowing the company’s corporate customers to pre-order foreign exchange for their trip. The bureaux will also offer a number of other services such as selling and cashing American Express travellers cheques, information to American Express card holders and sales of pre-paid international phone cards.

[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”0″ ihc_mb_template=”1″] Average national credit card debt dropped 18% to $6,285, with consumers in 19 states having paid down their debt by equal to or more than the national average. With this, Wisconsin cardholders paid down debt by a whopping 37%; Hawaii consumers paid down debt 22%; Missouri & Nevada both paid down…

Wendy Dobson has been appointed Head of DataCash Cardholder Present Services, a critical part of the strategy to further develop DataCash’s international multi channel solutions in coordination with MasterCard. A card payments industry veteran, Wendy gained valuable experience in EMV cardholder present and global multi channel card processing, through appointments at Comms XL, Transaction Network Services, STS and most recently at Servebase. She will oversee the crucial component of DataCash’s global aspirations, to provide merchants and partners with a consistent, leading payments solution across multiple channels.